Yes, the .com brand is very strong and I agree with you that .info will probably not fetch .com vanity prices, with the exception of maybe a few dozen generics, and even in those cases, the resell prices gotten will reflect todays economy/environment. I really do believe that while .com will remain the relative premo extension, getting more than the other extensions in general for the same name, that .info and to a lessor extent .biz (and the May surprise, .US), will lower resell prices across the board, if the resellers have any intentions of reselling. When all there was was .com, the geeky .net (which I do like) and the the nonprofity (buy hellaciously advertised) .org, yes, .commers could get pretty much what they wanted for .com. But with more choices, and more availability of potentially high profile extensions, will come a drop in what people can resell a name for. It's probably already happened, with the combined weight of all the crappy cc tlds being advertised as meaning something else.
You could say that .com is gold and everything else is chaff but isn't there some kind of logic to the idea that at one point, .com was gold and little else existed. Isn't that the best environment for a high priced .com resell? Doesn't anything less than that be as not good as that?
Doesn't the introduction of as of yet, admittedly unproven tlds, only hurt resell .com prices just because, and only because, there are other gtlds? Where before you had to sell the farm to get a .com, you could get a new tld for much less maybe even just the cost of registration. I suspect there are many who would do a cost benefit analyisis and say:
Ok, .com represents business on the internet however the name I want is being asked $75,000. Now I only have $10,000 but I could get an expensive loan. However, there is little guarantee I will make it and in fact many high profile sites that have done what I want to do have gone out of business, often in disgusting displays of lost capital, potential, hopes and dreams. And they were using .coms too oddly. Maybe I should focus on my stengths which is I believe to be a strong business model and a genuine care for my product and potential customers. I would like the .com because it is the highest profile extension but frankly, I simply can't afford it.
What If I use another extension (a new gtld or say, the rambunctious .US) and simply apply the time honored tradition of offering my customers a quaility product and service to develop my business? Could that work? Instead of a gimmick, what if I showed them the beef? Well, I will be saving huge dollars on the tld and this money could be used to develop a strong customer service and for advertising. It certainly doesn't seem that for all of .coms strength, that any advantage other than being associated with the notoriety of the meteoric rise and subsequent collapse of the internet economy is gained from using it in terms of being a success. Does it really say to customers, we are a serious business because we use .com?
Will the loss of the prestige of .com and .coms knowness be offset by my savings on the tld, my own beliefs that these gtlds could work and are being somewhat advertised and my goal of offering a qualty service and product for as long a time as I can. Who says .com is forever? Actually, it will be kind of challenging doing this. I believe it will say, we are not hype. We offer quality services.
Now how does this potential train of thought affect .com prices? If they are to be sold, they will have to in general be lowered, especially the second rate .coms because the market is no longer held hostage by a one (or three tld) tld world. Remember, .com is only huge because there was little else. It strength is built on association, unfairly gained (in a sense). While it is a strong brand, its really kind of flimsy in a sense if you remove the environment that gave it its strength. Maybe not right away but give it some time.....
LOL. Whatever. I think what you are saying in general is very fair safesys.
